Black Friday Hurts Us All
Today is supposed to be the day that the due diligence process ends for the Full Tilt acquisition by the mystery group. It’s an important date and I’m expecting some sort of news about the acquisition… either that it’s going forward or more likely that the purchasing group backed out after FTP lost its gaming license. If they do back out, at least Full Tilt will be back on the market for sale. Honestly, I don’t think the value has gone down THAT much since they had to cease operations. Everyone already knew that the boat was sinking. The real hurt came when they had to shutdown for US players… Full Tilt more than any other site depended on the US market. Even though they lost some money having to shutdown to Europeans after the Alderney gaming commission took their license away, the real value in Full Tilt has been and still is their user list which I’d estimate is about 50 million+ emails strong, with about 10 million accounts that have at one time played for real money. Their brand is also still strong… all of the WSOP and WPT tournament footage that they’ve sprayed their logo on over the years is still going to be there. If FTP gets acquired by a big company with deep pockets that pays everybody back, the damage won’t be that bad. Players will return and twenty years from now, when people watch Allen Cunningham losing to Jamie Gold, they’ll be inclined to see what’s at FullTiltPoker.
I’ve gotta say, though… this whole FTP situation has left me in a pretty sour mood. Every day that goes on without a word from Full Tilt just eats at me. I’ve been short with my girlfriend, stressed about cash, and just generally miserable. The other night Michele said something that hit home, though.
“You know… you’re not the only one who has been affected by all this. You’re not the only one who had money on there or was relying on affiliate payments.”
I guess it’s human nature to be selfish and only focus on how things affect you personally. When she said those words and I started thinking about it, it really set in just how many people must be going through hell right now because of this Full Tilt screw up. I think there must be a ton of poker players who are just in bad shape struggling to make rent, pay for gas, buy groceries, whatever. God forbid you were an online grinder in the Midwest with kids. I went on craigslist jobs and typed in “poker”. I saw numerous posts trying to get a stake for cash games… reaching out to the abyss and linking to OPR stats that don’t mean anything now. It’s really sad.
I really hope that this Full Tilt screw up doesn’t turn into a Full Tilt scandal. If the players don’t eventually get paid (and soon) there are going to be some big repercussions. Families are going to be torn apart and at least a few people will probably suicide. Pretty much anyone who ever owned a piece of Full Tilt would have to always be worried about their safety.
Anyway, hopefully by this time next week we’ll have some good news. In the meantime, just remind yourself that other people are hurting worse than you.
